On 28 December 2021, we arrived with our motorhome at the campsite in Los Romanes with the aim of visiting houses from here, together with Jan van der Marel of Second Home Andalusia. After all, we wanted to live permanently in Spain, somewhere in the Axarquía.  

It took a few years to get started; lots of searching on internet sites, trying to find the nicest/most beautiful house within the budget we had in mind. It seemed more tricky than we thought because there is a lot involved in buying a house in Spain. We already had some experience with buying abroad, having lived in Hungary for several years. But even there, things are just different.  

After some study, our preference grew to looking for something in the Axarquía. There are still many Spanish (white) villages here and it is not overrun by tourism, plus the weather is very pleasant here throughout the year! Some searching brought us to the website of Second Home Andalusia. We could fill in our wishes on their site so that Marita and Jan could get to work! We kept in touch via e-mail and at some point we decided to drive to Spain with the motor home.   

And, while we were still on the road, we got almost daily updates on various houses in the area. In the evening, we both sat attentively looking at the houses on the laptop to share our thoughts and preferences with them again. This created an interesting list of houses to visit.   

Once we arrived in the region, we first ended up at a nice camper spot in Periana. There, we met Marita in person at a local restaurant. She explained to us very well how they work, what the buying process entails and that we could go and visit some houses with her husband Jan very soon. We then moved to a campsite near Los Romanes as this was a bit more central for Jan to pick us up.  

And so we discovered the area: in parts of the region the somewhat steep and winding mountain roads were not too Saskia’s liking. Also, some houses were a bit too remote for us. We found that we felt more comfortable living a bit lower down and not too remote: to have neighbours was no problem for us. After adjusting our search, we visited a few more houses and finally found 'our' house in Cortijo Romero, a nice urbanisation near the village of Viñuela.  

On 31 January last year, the deal was finalised and appointments with the lawyer and notary were in the mail a day later. As we couldn't stay in Spain for too long, we gave the lawyer our power of attorney to sort everything out for us and sign where necessary. Again, well taken care of!  

After signing the power of attorney at the notary and the first examinations of the legal paperwork for the house by the lawyer, we drove to Hungary somewhat quickly in anticipation of the sale. We had to go back to pack everything in our house and arrange many things there. Indeed, the handover was already in early June! On 30 May, we left Hungary again, by land and by sea to drive through Barcelona to our very own house in Andalusia!  

We arrived there on 2 June, together with a fully packed truck. Jan had arranged 6 strong men to empty it and put everything in place. It was a hot day, but oh how happy we were! 

And now we have settled in quite well and can only say that we have the right house in the right place and we are enjoying Spanish life to the full! We would like to thank everyone involved, Second home Andalusia, lawyer Nacho from Lex Iurius and the selling agent Villa Solutions very much for their efforts to make our dream come true!     

Henry, Saskia and ????